Saving sessions as webtests with Fiddler2

Today I was trying to save some saved sessions with Fiddler2 to a webtest since I cannot record webtests with VS2008 with my common user profile that I use on my laptop.

When I tried to save the file I got a very annoying error that a specified assembly could not be found. Fiddler2 is trying to load version 8.0.0.0 of Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.WebTestFramework.dll but alas, I do not have VS2005 install, I have VS2008. What to do? I'm already bummed that I cannot record webtests as I should be able to. I find this to be really annoying as recording webtests shouldn't be this annoying.

At this point you're probably asking, "So, Mr. Auswipe-Load-Tester-Dude, does this shake your faith in the VS2008 framework for load testing?" Not yet is my reply. Why you ask when these two issues are clearly impediments? Well, with Load Runner I was running into problems recording virtual users and had the problem for over three weeks where I could not record vusers on my work machine. When I tried to record vusers both FireFox and IE would detonate and crash. I worked with Level I and Level II techs for over three weeks trying to correct the problem and the issues was never solved. It turns out I got my current job offer and accepted it. I told my former coworkers that I figured the solution was to take the fdisk quiz and reload the OS and start again. I certainly hope the same solution is not required for the MS solution.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand...

I did some Googling and I found this entry on CodeProf.com with a solution by Ed Glas. Ed basically says to modify the fiddler.exe.config and use the tag but as documented here but did not include a full fledged example, just the link to the .NET config file documentation. So, I'm not a .NET expert by any stretch of the imagination (but am working on it slowly but surely) so I wasn't quite sure what all config tags were required for the redirect. Here is what I used and it appears to be working *cross fingers*.

   1:  <configuration> 

   2:    <runtime> 

   3:      <legacyUnhandledExceptionPolicy enabled="1" /> 

   4:      <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

   5:        <dependentAssembly>

   6:          <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.WebTestFramework"

   7:                                  publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

   8:                                  culture="neutral" />

   9:              <bindingRedirect oldVersion="8.0.0.0"

  10:                               newVersion="9.0.0.0"/>

  11:           </dependentAssembly>

  12:        </assemblyBinding>

  13:    </runtime> 

  14:  </configuration> 

After doing some recording it appears that the code that is generated from the converted Fiddler2 to .webtest to coded web test looks good and I see the automagic correlation of data extracted from form fields and the ever dreaded VIEWSTATE.

This oughta be good enough for me right now until I resolve the situation with VS2008. I have no personal problems with recording a session, saving as a .webtest and then added the .webtest to a project and converting to a coded web test so it's all good with me.